Urinary infections and treatment

Hello Brad

I find your post about antibiotic resistant microbes very worrying. Sooner or later we are all going to face this problem. Many of us have frequent UTIs. I know I do. So far the bugs I have are sensitive to most ordinary antibiotics. I haven’t had to result to IV antibiotics, only when I’ve been in hospital for operations of one sort or another. I don’t like the sound of your decreased urine output. That could be down to kidney function. When did you last have your kidneys checked? What is your sodium level? Low sodium can affect urine output as the body holds on to its liquid to maintain a level of electrolytes. Low sodium levels can be dangerous. The brain actually swells, you become delusional and you speak garbage if it’s very low. drinking too much water can cause low sodium levels. Check previous blood results against the new one to see if your creatinine level is rising, along with your potassium levels. These are indications of kidney damage. I don’t know what the health system's like in America, whether you can ask your Doctor to check your blood or not, but you should request a kidney function blood test. Unfortunately autonomic dysreflexia is not my friend. I get it all too frequently and when I have infections it is severe. I’m very Dysreflexic. Look after yourself Brad. You’ve been doing well over the years. I hope you get on top of these infections. I hope the bloody pharmaceutical companies get their heads together and start to produce a new breed of antibiotics. Problem is there isn’t enough money in it for them. They’re not interested in our health, just their profits. Antibiotic resistant microbes should be a concern to governments all over the world. They should pool their money into research. There are all sorts of exciting new avenues to combat lethal bugs. Somebody somewhere needs to develop it. These bugs will one day destroy humanity if they are all left to become antibiotic resistant super bugs

Regular79, for UTI’s I drink a tea of marshmallow root, hydrangea root and gravel root. I spike it with black cherry juice. Only drink a little the first time. Store the rest in the fridge. This mixture of herbs dissolves debris in the urinary tract system and the infection disappears.

Only when I have a UTI. ....though it wouldn’t hurt at all to drink it for maintenance. In fact, marshmallow root is what the French originally made marshmallows out of.

“Marshmallows, progenitor of the fluffy white confection we eat today [which, by the way contains NO marsh mallow], originated in France sometime during the middle of the nineteenth century. Marshmallow roasts commenced in the late 19th century.”

bestblender.co.uk/2016/09/17/make-marshmallows-marshmallow-plant-root-recipe/

ChairmanBradley- I like your name!
I've been deeply concerned about the antibiotic resistance problem for years as I know that , unless something changes, this will be the cause-of-death for many of us. It already has been for some lovely people I've met online. In addition, one of the more useful antibiotics, Cipro, caused me to suffer severe kidney damage in 2014, so I'm between the old rock and hard place.  Cipro has been declared by the CDC to be a drug to be used with greatest caution.  

The obvious things we can do are:

1. Eat VERY healthy. You say you eat well compared to many Americans and that is like me saying, at 5 foot 4 inches, I am very tall compared to most rural Guatemalans. You need more sensible basis of comparison. Obviously you want a diet geared to bolster your immune system.  Can you get yourself referred to a nutritionist to discuss this? Vintage makes interesting suggestions and it is smart to do as she has done and learn as much as you can about medicinal herbs as well as about nutrition. Our lives really depend on both the quantity and volume of the information we get. Since you work its not easy to cram in study, but we do what we can.

Are your intestines typically swollen or distended? Lots of gas? These can be symptoms of food allergies, in which case you can start by cutting out the foods that most commonly cause problems, like bread and dairy. It is simple enough- if your tummy shrinks up over a week's time you have a good possibility for improving your health. The small intestines are very important to immune function, so if they are sluggish due to inflammation, the immune system will suffer.

2. Get exercise every day. We need the best circulation we can manage.

3. Visit an acupuncturist with a strong emphasis on herbal formulae. They know good stuff and their system of diagnosis helps them gauge which traditional medicines, and at what quantity, your kidneys can handle without doing damage. Medicinal herbs can be just as dangerous as any drugs made by big Pharma so it is important to consult with people who have studied them deeply in a well-crafted program. In school! I've been using a formula called Akebia Moist Heat for years and find if I forget them for a day my urine looks and smells a lot worse.

MikeQ mentioned some of the key blood test markers for kidney weakness. If your doc says your kidneys are good, or if you download your own tests and the numbers for sodium, potassium, and creatinine, are within the normal range (shown right there on the sheet), you are probably safe to do some experimenting. I tried 2 different remedies for bladder infections that did not work well enough for me. The Akebia (an herb common to most of the bladder/kidney formulae put out by various companies who market to practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine [TCM] ) Moist Heat worked best for me with little to no downside. I tried one that addresses more systemic infection and even at tiny doses it kicked my neuropathy symptoms into highest gear.

With all drugs or herbs each person will react a little differently. Sometimes a lot! A pharmacist I knew told me that bacteria probably would not be able to develop resistance to the TCM formulae because they mixed many different herbs and had an large assortment of complex molecules.  At the same time, they are not as powerful s antibiotics.  Antibiotics have a core structure to their molecule that is relatively simple. That is why I took the approach I've taken.

I also recall one forum user saying the briefs from Walmart gave her the fewest accidents.  I sympathize- taking off pants and shoes to change nappies is a pain.  I leak on occasion and I dread the changing process.  We do what we must.  Sometimes it works to stick a large panty pad  in the brief and just change that.

I can so identify with your story man. I broke my C6 and 7 in a dive 39 years ago so I'm a quad. When I was discharged from rehab in 1979 I was on a cath regimen 4 to 6 times per day. I wore an external too so that got changed every time I was cathed. What a colossal pain in the ass this was. It was this way for four years until I got to college and met a guy who introduced me to mentor external catheters. They are now owned by Coloplast and have a strong adhesive meant to be on 24 hours. I made the decision to stop cathing then altogether. I feel cathing introduces foreign bacteria inside the urinary tract that would not get there otherwise. Now I bare down and empty my bladder each morning in the shower and massage my bladder during the day when i sense i have to go. Do i completely empty my bladder? No. Do i get uti? Yes but not as frequently as people who Cath. One every 1 to 2 years on average. Not cathing has freed up a lot of time and need to be helped by others. I just had a complete kidney and renal system workup done and everything came back normal. I could not believe it. I drink soda and water. No alcohol. When a uti does come around I get a culture done and make sure the med I get is the right one for the bug I have. Thankfully oral antibiotics for 10 to 14 days is all it takes. Still after 39 years. For me peeing well with a good stream is very satisfying. Like Tom hanks in the water closet in the green mile.

I too have wondered how I will meet with my demise. I fear it will be due to renal system failure and not instant. It`S a long miserable way to go. One that causes pain, discomfort, and drains your bank account. I have decided I want to leave my family what I worked hard for the last 30 years and continue to work for. I will be leaving on my own terms and will know when that time is.

This is a difficult subject to broach but one that needs to be discussed. States like Oregon have a program in place for people to end their own life with assistance when they are terminal. I haven't looked into how it applies to sci but I'm sure sci could qualify somewhere. I take a small dose of antibiotic to use as a preventative and smoke weed. Weed is the one drug that makes my life livable. Without it I would not be around. It takes care of my stomach spasms, leg spasms, helps my mood, stress, anxiety, depression, appetite, and sleep. Omg it is a miracle drug. I read about all the addictive drugs that everybody else gets put on by their doctors and it's disgusting because they get compensated for every prescription they write baclofen pumps Percocet Vicodin morphine the list goes on and on and weed takes care of all that stuff for me. I am a unique bird I understand that but I feel I know more about being paralyzed than any doctor and does having done paralyzed for almost 40 years I've taught my doctor more about it than he has me and he's told me so.

I make sure that I lean foward and bear down gently to empty my bladder at night before bed, morning, and two or three times during the day. I so much prefer this to cathing and UTI’s. Plus, my spascity made cathing almost impossible. When my foot swells up or my urine smells strong of ammonia, I drink the tea of kidney/bladder herbs. That fixes the problem.

chairmanbradley , your situation has struck a cord with many including myself. Bladder maintenance is a daily constant that we all need to be aware of. Take a look maybe at your alternative treatment options, I wrote this post some time back and I am posting the link because it highlights how we can think that we are taking the best supplement but is it really doing what we think it is.

Is it worth looking at your 'emptying' options and looking at what is actually being left in the bladder after each catheterising? Can your doctor arrange to have your bladder scanned everytime for a whole 24 hours and then re evaluate. Our bodies change as we get older too and maybe this needs to be looked at again?


inspiredsciforum.com/thread/1767/using-best-cranberry-supplement-available